Broken Piano for President (49 page)

Henry never realized the blood pooling from Dimitri’s blanket was corn syrup and dye—nobody ever actually saw any bullet-chopped flesh. Carl/Dimitri played possum for thousands of miles, hiding a fiber optic spycam and praying for this dramatic monologue. After getting dumped in a phone booth, he shed that wet blanket and walked to the safe house a few miles away. He quickly dubbed a DVD and called a bike messenger.

“Shocking footage,” Sharon says. She interviews a professor of economics from a nearby university. Our anchor asks what this video means to consumers. “Sharon, I’m afraid this is the Big One. A culinary Mount Vesuvius. Who do you trust when it comes to eating now? This footage proves both corporations are filthy, backstabbing liars. Add this to the already harsh publicity Winters Olde-Tyme Hamburgers and Bust-A-Gut have shouldered and you get two ruined American institutions. You get the consumer saying, ‘Good riddance.’

“Sharon, the people will take their empty stomachs and their hearty wallets somewhere else. Personally, I don’t see this as the death of two restaurant chains…which it is. Rather, this is an amazing opportunity to diversify American palettes. There’s room for more than two fast food restaurants. Mark my words, someone will step up and fill this gulch, Sharon.”

“Fascinating, professor. This has been a head-spinning day. Stay tuned for a recap before your eleven o’clock news.”

Our commercial break is nothing but Healthy Wally’s ads. Each one is tailored to be clean and innocent. Tailored to fill a gulch left by two major burger houses.

Deshler swallows his vomit in one fiery chug while Malinta opens a van door. He remembers being half-drunk a few nights ago, listening to his assistant explain, “Word on the street is, the cosmonauts are coming to chop off your head, sir. Maybe your testicles, too. Corey, in the mailroom, heard they only want one, though.”

High above the street, thick tongues of fire lick against the outer wall of the hotel, thirsty for second helpings. A ketchup-colored blazer smolders in a lump by Dean’s feet. It slowly fizzles into ash. The neck of a bass guitar hits the street and klonks around like a baseball bat. Snowflakes of bright pink papier-mâché nest in Dean’s hair. The street is a warzone.

Deshler is fairly certain he’s never met Sonja and Keith, though he recognizes them from the
Cosmonaut Watch
file Winters gave him. Wiping ashy goo from his chin, Deshler squints a few moments into the dark van.
They look skinnier on television,
he first thinks. Followed closely by:
Wait, does this mean I’m being neutered
?

Dean quickly scans the rest of the van—two slabs of beef who look like the dead cosmonauts, Yuri and Pavel, ride in the back and wave. Another guy, who strongly resembles Dean himself, sits shotgun with a gap tooth and scarred chin.

Dead bodies sprout up like random burning weeds across the street. Concrete, tables, chairs and greedy valets dissolve and crackle into charcoal eighteen stories up. Emergency sirens blast in the distance.

“Hop in, comrade,” the man America knows as Cosmonaut Keith says in a perfect Midwestern accent. Keith’s dialogue is so effortless, he and Dean could have grown up down the street from one another.

Sonja waves a friendly arm and pats the empty seat next to her with an inviting smile. Teeth still yucky.

“What are my options here?” Dean squeezes out, assuming any one of these people will shoot or stab or uniball him. His rib cage rattles at each heartbeat.

“Relax,” Malinta purrs and swats his ass. “I said you’d die if you played that show. Trust us. Your blood’s still pumping, isn’t it?”

His chest says she’s right, but his eyes dart all over. The van is clean, probably rented. “Are you going to,” his throat stiffens like swallowing a handful of sand. “Hurt me…somewhere special?”

“No.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“The exact opposite, actually,” Sonja says with no Russian accent, smiling even bigger. “We’d like to offer you a job.”

“What would Gibby do?” he mutters, sensing a trap.

“He’d get in this stupid car before a body lands on him,” Keith says. “That’s what he’d do.”

Deshler burns like he was a bass amp full of plastic charges. Malinta pushes, Keith pulls, and Dean stumbles into the van just before another spine-rumbling explosion detonates upstairs.

Dean catches a breath long enough to see Malinta behind the wheel. They are already pulling away from the bombing. She swerves to avoid the mess.

“You okay?” Keith asks. “Need any ice water or some Fat-Free Ahi Tuna Poppers?”

“Easy,” Sonja says with English so perfect she could easily anchor a show like
Nightbeat
. “I’m sure our friend has some questions.”

“Yes,” our hero’s voice trickles. “Questions.”

The town is rolling past the windows, all of it unfamiliar to Dean. Streetlamps showcasing another mysterious chunk of the town he thought he knew so well.

“So, like I was saying, we at Healthy Wally’s have a great offer for you. A real leap up the ladder,” Sonja says. “But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“Way ahead,” Keith chimes.

“Wait,” Dean’s mouth hangs open, confused. “Healthy Wally’s?”

“I hope you’re comfortable with the explosions and all that jazz.”

Dean’s fear liquefies and leaks out his pores, disappearing into the van’s air. “I heard you don’t speak English. Aren’t you guys Russian?”

“Well, it’s time someone told you the truth…
again
. Malinta, darling, didn’t you already have this chat with Deshler?” Sonja sighs. “Anyhow, the Russians, they’re all dead.”

“So you’re a ghost?”

“Let me clarify. All five original cosmonauts starved to death up in that floating garbage can because
you
had them send their food out in a ridiculous space suit.”

“Wait, whoa. Me?” His muscles tighten in defense, his brain cycles through odd scraps of memory. Burning hot adrenaline splashes through him. His fingertips dig into the seat—a rush like playing a great show with Lothario Speedwagon.

He feels like someone completely different. Not himself. He disagrees with his rant to Hamler:
you aren’t really living until you are someone else
.

It all sounds like such bullshit now.

“I’m trying to kiss up to you, here. Relax. Healthy Wally’s got word of the new Space Burger Campaign, so our moles at Winters pulled some strings and next thing you know our team is at a casting call for the new Moscow Five. I’m pretty proud of myself. I think it’s rare for a company’s president to be so hands-on, don’t you?”

Deshler sucks his tongue in disbelief.

“Not to toot my own horn, but look at the grunt work I’ve been doing the last few weeks. Whew. I’d like to see those two idiots.” She points back at the flaming Beef Club. “Winters and that vegan hypocrite Lepsic, carry out an act like this on their own. Christ, I deserve a daytime Emmy.”

“You said it, Miss Dayton,” Keith pipes in. “The rest is history, Dean. We owe you everything. Heck, I mean, sacrificing your band so you could destroy Winters and Bust-A-Gut, what a plan. You’re like a chess master. You see ten steps ahead.”

“Easy, we’re not hanging his portrait in the Louvre.”

“Sorry, Wally.”

“Look, let’s cut the tofu here. You’re not perfect, pal. Your work in the last six months has plugged more arteries than adding lard to the water supply,” the woman who is not really Sonja says. “Relax, sit still, I’m not mad. But, I mean, a
deep-fried
hamburger?”

Words barely deserve to be called a mumble: “What would Gibby do?”

“He’d shut the bleep up and listen to
the
Wally Dayton,” Malinta snaps from up front.

“Not very ladylike, Ms. Redding,” Wally says. “I am not a broken record,” her voice becomes stern and motherly. “If you want to be taken seriously and move up in the company, you need to be a…what?”

“
Lady
.”

“Pardon?”

“Lady. I need to be more ladylike. I need to watch my language. It’s in the handbook, I know I just—”

“Exactly,” she nods, satisfied. “You are forgiven.” She turns back to Dean, “Now, once Malinta told us about you and what you do, it seemed like a natural pair—like rice cakes and soy cheese. I knew we would work together and change the world.”

Dean’s panicked mind always reverts to the band. He imagines himself onstage with a blasting speaker system to his back. He’s a foot taller than everyone, throwing bags of God-knows-what at the audience. Confidence fills his body and explodes through all muscles. “When were you planning on telling me?”

“Dean,” Malinta says. “We’ve had this conversation about five times. This exact same one. Remember the paperwork you signed? You more or less planned this whole thing.” She pauses a beat. “I mean, this drunk amnesiac routine is just part of your cover, right? An act?”

Dean reminds himself he could easily be at the Beef Club in a dancing pile of firewood right now. He’s alive and he tells himself not to listen to this woman’s stories.

“What about us?” He is near tears, throat some new kind of achy.

“Ughhhhh.” Malinta’s eyes are on the road. Her voice could go either way and it sends Deshler’s heart loose.

“This doesn’t sound ladylike, either,” the guy in the passenger seat says. Dean can’t get over the resemblance to himself.

“Shut up,” Malinta snaps.

“Quit it, both of you,” Sonja says.

“It’s fine, Wally,” she says. “Sweetie, jusqu’à hier. Okay?”

Her eyes are bold and green in the rearview. Speaking French is a rusty nail into his neck. “That means
until yesterday
,” Dean says.

“Oh, I meant until tomorrow.”

He senses her tone. It’s one that isn’t that far off from so many others—others that used him for no good.

His throat hurts. Something says not to reply, but Dean can’t stop himself. “Jusqu’à demain.” His stomach goes sick.

“Thanks for the lesson. Now, on to bigger and better.” The face known around the world as Sonja Kassabova, the cosmonaut, leans in close—her breath smells wholesome, like a farmer’s market. “Deshler, we are home free. Thanks to your concert and our explosives, all of Bust-A-Gut and Olde-Tyme Hamburgers’ management are now deep-fried. I mean, sure, we have to confirm each casualty. But once that is done, our people—Healthy Wally’s people,” she says with a nudge to Dean’s elbow. “Are embedded in both companies and they’ll take over running these cholesterol factories into the ground.” Her eyes glow shiny and wet. “It’s the dawn of a new day for American calorie counts. Doesn’t it feel terrific?”

She sucks in a long breath and whips her hair back and forth with glee.

“We want you on board for the whole thing. I personally chose you as our President of Development. But we need the photo negatives of all your inventions. You know, black replaced by white, hamburger patties replaced by polenta cakes, that’s the gist. Use those same brain muscles, but for good instead of bad. You’re lucky. Not every evil genius gets to pay for his sins. Most times they just get hung in a courtyard.”

“So.” Dean drawls out breath, pretending his lungs are full of cigarette smoke. He pushes thoughts of Malinta from under the light in his heart and out into the cold dark. It’s tougher than you’d think. “You killed all those people? What about my band? What about the record company dude? What about Napoleon?” His chest is a particle smasher. Tiny explosions vaporize inhibitions, his chains.

“Look, pal,” she says lovingly. “In order to make an omelet you have to break some soy-based vegan egg substitute.” She pauses. “Oooh, that’s good. Write that down. We should whip up a breakfast menu.”

“Soy-based, vegan. Got it, Wally,” the man America thinks is Keith Kassabova says.

“Do you see what I’m saying? Those guys, I’m sorry, but they were a necessary sacrifice. They were witnesses to Keith and Sonja. That record company man, well,
whoops
. And I did you a favor by vaporizing Napoleon—we’ve seen your
video
. Listen, we’ll compensate you the money you were going to get advanced from Moral Compass, no sweat. And we have the lawyers to make your drunken hit-and-run accident disappear, too.”